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B.C. election offers lessons for politicians everywhere

From advertising strategies to mobilizing young voters, politicians have a lot to learn.

B.C. NDP Leader Adrian Dix led in the polls but came up a loser on election night Tuesday. (May 14, 2013) (DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Michael Byers

Thu., May 16, 2013

Christy Clark’s re-election was a political shocker of seismic proportions. Nobody saw the victory coming: neither the pollsters, nor the pundits, not even the premier herself.

Across Canada, across the electoral spectrum, politicians and their advisers are scrambling to understand what occurred. Here’s an initial assessment, from my vantage point close to the front lines.

Positive campaigning is about demeanour, not substance. It’s about conveying optimism and empathy, about connecting with potential voters and inspiring them to turn out. Christy Clark did this well; Adrian Dix did not. And you never, ever, say that you’re running a positive campaign. Just do it!

Incumbents have to be held to account. Barack Obama’s “yes we can” campaign was leveraged explicitly on eight years of Bush administration failures. The B.C. NDP should have campaigned hard against the major scandals from the B.C. Liberals’ 12 years of power, including the deceptive introduction and shamefaced retraction of the HST. They should have campaigned against British Columbia having the highest child poverty rate in Canada, and against Clark’s personal proximity to the scandal-ridden sale of B.C. Rail.

Attack ads work, at least if they are directed against real weaknesses. Adrian Dix did change his position on the Kinder Morgan pipeline halfway through the election campaign. He did wrongly backdate a “memo-to-file” while serving as chief of staff to an NDP premier in 1999.

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Never show up at a shootout with a Nerf Gun. Attacks have to be countered, and strongly, before they cause lasting damage. This can require launching a retaliatory attack — ideally, again, one that is directed against a real weakness.

Most people, rather than voting on detailed policies, make their choice on the basis of some broader narrative. The economy matters, but detailed solutions — like Adrian Dix’s beloved “skills training” — do not. The people who are hurting most in tough economic times are also those who, because of a lack of time, education or civil engagement, may be most receptive to simple messaging.

For progressive parties, the environmental narrative must be clear, consistent and credible. People who care about this issue are particularly cynical about politicians, given the past failures of all the main political parties on this front. Again, Dix’s late declaration of opposition to the Kinder Morgan pipeline smacked of opportunism.

Third parties cannot be ignored. Losing support on single issues or ideological flanks can cost a first-or-second place party the election, and the Internet means that the old strategy of ignoring third parties no longer works. Positions and narratives have to be crafted for multi-party competitions where, for example, being credible on supporting both extractive industries as well as the environment matters for electoral success.

Progressive parties need to address the felt desire of many progressive voters for cross-party electoral co-operation. A clear commitment to introducing proportional representation immediately upon being elected could help to draw third party supporters toward any progressive party with a real chance of winning. Unfortunately, the B.C. NDP believed it could win successive elections within the “first past the post” system. Federal Liberals and New Democrats please take note!

Pollsters have trouble accounting for lower turnout among some parts of the population. Young people are still not voting, and inspiring them to do so is the single greatest challenge facing progressive political parties today. Twitter and Facebook are no replacement for face-to-face relationship-building. Christy Clark lost her own seat because of a young and energetic B.C. NDP candidate who forged thousands of personal connections the hard way.

Polls can cause complacency. Many potential B.C. NDP voters stayed home because of the apparent certainty of their preferred outcome. Progressive political parties, whose supporters are generally less committed to voting, need to undermine public confidence in polling so as to keep anxiety levels high.

There are no second chances. The key organizers of the B.C. NDP campaign were the same people who lost the 2009 provincial election. The campaign manager was Brian Topp, who was the early front-runner in the 2011-2012 federal NDP leadership race. With all due respect to Dix, who would have made a remarkably good premier, politicians who want to win cannot allow friendships to shape their choice of campaign teams.

Michael Byers teaches political science at the University of British Columbia. He ran for the federal NDP in 2008 and, in 2011-2012, co-chaired Tom Mulcair’s leadership campaign in B.C.

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